Well, I not only survived Christmas Eve, I made it through a very active night shift, working New Year's Eve, too. Thus far, in 2014, my evidentiary photography has been rather slow. If I make it through St. Patrick's Day, another challenging time of the year, I will have reached thirty years of wearing a police badge!

Anything will sell... at the right price. How bad is it? Just had a quick look at one used dealer, prices start around £600 (compared to just over £1000 new). To think, I paid £600 for the 600D when that came out... how things move on!

I'm curious how the Zeiss Touit 2.8/50mm makro performs. I have the 2/50 makro for Canon, but could sell that and pick up the Touit and a mid range NEX body... why? AF! I like the look of 50mm on APS-C for still life. Normal 50mm lenses don't focus close enough, so a high quality macro would be perfect. AF on a tilty screen would be a big plus too.

I am thinking that I have almost reached a comfortable amount in various retirement accounts, and can consider retiring from public/civil service as soon as this summer, and live well enough. Police patrol work is a young person's game; we tend to retire in our early- to mid-fifties, and at age fifty-two, I have been noticing a decline in reaction time, energy level, and the ability of my eyes to adjust to rapid changes in light levels.

Unlike a footballer, retiring "at the top of my game" is not realistic; it is about a decade too late for me to do that.

If not this summer, then perhaps 2015.

Photography is a major part of my "exit strategy" from public service, which does not necessarily mean I plan to earn income by shooting. I plan to attend training events, such as Peter Read Miller's highly-regarded sports-shooting training, Syl Arena's Speedliting workshops, and perhaps Steve Cirone's bird photography training. As I do more research, I am sure to find other options, but these persist. (I have attended two of Syl Arena's one-day Speedliter's Intensive events.) Fine art photography is a growing interest, too.

Obviously, one is unlikely to have enough time, energy, or wealth to seriously pursue all of these divergent types of shooting, but trying one at a time, with borrowed/rented lenses, remains feasible, I think.

Composing, typing, and editing this has been therapeutic.

I am grateful to all who may have chosen to read this far, without falling asleep.

It has been my dream for quite some time now to own a Canon EF 500/4 lens. It is just perfect: it has a very high image quality, it is lighter than the 600, it has a large aperture, it can be combined with Ext x1.4 and x2.0, and it has weather sealing. For someone like me that likes wildlife photography more than anything it is the best in my opinion. The price tag though... Wow. Even a second hand first generation costs round 5000 euro. And now that my first child is born and we are planning on moving to a bigger house (which equals higher monthly costs) I have seen the amount of money available for purchases like this decline rapidly.

Saving for it would take me 5 or more years and I could not spend a lot of money during that time on other things that I enjoy like videogames and guitars, and I have never been the most patient person in the world. So when the Tamron 150-600 was announced I was really interested in what that would be like in terms of IQ. Finally a review came online and it was quite positive, saying the IQ was better at 400mm than my Canon 100-400 that I use now, and it has weather sealing too. The thing is though: IQ at 600 is not all that great. And that reach is kinda the point for buying it.

I have written off the Tamron 150-600 in my mind, so I just have to be patient then. Buying a 500/4 though would mean I could have bought a lot of the other things I still want: a full frame body like the 5D Mark II or maybe a 1D Mark III, the 100/2.8 L Macro, the 24-105/4 L, a good ball head for my tripod, a bigger Lowepro bag for all my gear, a bunch of filters, and I would still have loads to spare. Difficult choices to make when you are on a relatively tight budget .

Well, the 150-600mm doesn't seem to be too bad - especially as the lens is pretty payable in comparison. http://www.theamazingimage.com/wildlife ... hoto-zoom/Even though I have all the 5D3, 100mm 2.8 and 24-105mm I wouldn't even think of getting the Canon 500mm f4.Still the Tamron is quite interesting. Coming from the 500D I'm missing the extra reach from the 100-400mm on my 5D3 - the Tamron would give the range I was used to. Even though 600mm might not be as sharp as the 500mm 4 from Canon it's still more reach and it has the zoom that could be absolutely useful.

Agreed that is isn't too bad, but the 500 can be combined with the 1.4x and 2.0x converters easily and still have good to high quality. Not being able to zoom is a disadvantage but I find myself at 400mm 95% of the time with my 100-400 so I don't think I will be zooming out too much. Still: a 500 costs a hell of a lot of money. And the Tamron 150-600 is extremely affordable. Always a dilemma these things .

The forum is dead. Long live the forum! I like the forum format myself but in this case I think people have move on. Hear G+ might be one of those but I don't get along with it.

Elsewhere, I heard lenstip posted their review of the new Sigma 50. That could be my 1st lens purchase in a long time as I want a nice 50 with AF. The Zeiss 50 makro is nice in itself but without AF reduces its uses.